D&D 5E The "Lawful" alignment, and why "Lawful Evil" is NOT an oxymoron!

[Maxperson]

But Doom is only interested in following the rules that he makes. Anyone else's rule can go hang. For Doom, might makes right. He's not interested in creating a system that would not have him on the top.

He's pretty clearly CE.

Doom has never, ever been about might makes right. He may make the rules for his country, but he follows those rules and believes very strongly in them. It doesn't matter if he's interested in being at the top of that system. It is a system and he's all for having it. A might makes right individual won't make any system and just rules by brute force combined with his own personal whim, without regard to law or standard. Doom doesn't do that. Also, that he does not follow the laws of others doesn't change him from being lawful. He does follow his own and feels that laws are necessary. He's got structure and order to his life and beliefs. A chaotic evil individual wouldn't feel that way.

 

[Sunseeker]

But Doom is only interested in following the rules that he makes. Anyone else's rule can go hang. For Doom, might makes right. He's not interested in creating a system that would not have him on the top.

He's pretty clearly CE.

I never understood this requirement for Lawful characters, why would they follow someone else's rules? Neutral positions notwithstanding, even in your homeland there are likely laws you disagree with and certainly in other lands there are likely laws that do not fit with your code of conduct. Typically, I have only ever seen a DM require people to "follow the laws" of another land when those laws clearly go against the LG aligned person who ends up having to risk everything simply taking their next breath.

 

[Celebrim]

The essence of lawfulness is that you believe that there is Truth, and is defined and measured by something outside of and greater than yourself. The most basic test of lawfulness is that when your personal conscious disagrees with a moral code, you tend to assume that it is you that is at fault and not the moral code. Chaotics on the other hand believe that they must "follow the dictates of their conscious" and "to your own self be true". Lawfuls would see that as hubris - the arrogant assumption that despite all your failings, you still assume you know better than everyone else.

This division doesn't have a lot to do with whether you are good or evil. You can still adhere faithfully to an external morally repugnant code. Likewise, you own internal moral compass can be skewed or non-existent. And as important note, just because you put your own moral conscious above others, doesn't mean that you ultimately disregard the interests of others in favor of self. You can still relying on your own consciousness come to the conclusion that other selves also have worth and decide something like, "I'll do to others what I would want them to do to me." That statement has a primacy of ones own judgment and wants, but it doesn't disregard the needs of others. All chaos means is that you put your own judgment first, because you think meaning is something that only exists when it is created internally by individuals. You don't think meaning actually exists outside of the mind - that, there is no "Justice particle". You believe "justice" and "love" and so forth are created concepts and not inherently existing ones.

Likewise, one ought to distinguish between law and chaos as it is generally manifested in mortal beings such as humans and expressions of pure (or nearly pure) law and chaos. The purest expression of law would be everything conforming completely to some external principle with no self-expression, and no distinctiveness, and indeed no separation from the whole. The purest expression of chaos would be nothing conforming to any external principles at all. Quite obviously, no human is capable of expressing either one.

The same is also true of pure goodness and pure evil. The decision to prefer balance to either one single philosophy has to be understood in this light. Essentially, balance suggests that since a purity of any single principle would result in the destruction of what is, the current state of mingled principles is to be preferred to any one principles triumph. Particularly in the case of Law and Chaos, which it must be remembered in Moorcock's cosmology are the only cosmological principles that actually exist, this is rather clear. Moorcock is quite clear that the principles of Law and Chaos need each other, and without the other each is meaningless and static. A similar argument would be made for balance between Good and Evil by those that favor neutrality on that axis.

 

[Celebrim]

I never understood this requirement for Lawful characters, why would they follow someone else's rules? Neutral positions notwithstanding, even in your homeland there are likely laws you disagree with and certainly in other lands there are likely laws that do not fit with your code of conduct.

If that is the case, and a lawful person feels uncomfortable with certain laws of his homeland, he's likely to think that the fault lies with himself and not with the laws. A lawful person will tend to see it as their own moral failing that they are attempting to pass judgment on something higher than they are themselves. They'll tend to doubt their own wisdom and tend to assume that the higher power (whatever it is) is likely wiser and more correct than they are. And even if they doubt that this is true, they will still tend to see it as their duty to continue to be obedient even when the ruler(s) is in the wrong.

I agree that this is a very alien philosophy to the average modern Westerner, but its not at all an unusual one historically or generally. In general, modern Western thinking tends to make following the dictates of one's own consciousness heroic, particularly when it goes against the grain of the larger society. But that's not the only way to think about this.

 

[Celebrim]

My issues with alignment are largely pragmatic ones. If there is no real difference between lawful neutral and lawful good, at least in their behaviour, then why bother having both?

There are several differences between the two. One area that they greatly disagree with is over the issue of mercy. Lawful Neutral's are utterly perplexed by the notion of mercy, as to them it would seem to undermine the law and justice (and quite arguably they are right).

A LN would say something like, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. That's what is just, and nothing less (or more). Let each person receive what they deserve. Mercy inherently requires a fiat judgment, and so taints order with a stain of chaos."

A LG would say something like, "Let the law be at most an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life. But let us be merciful, recognizing that each of us makes mistakes, giving each a chance to make restitution for his crimes, to repent of their wickedness, and reform. So long as the possibility that a person may be redeemed, and contribute to the health of society, let us not be haste to condemn. In our zeal to uphold the law, let's not forget what the purpose of the law is."

A LE would say something like, "If someone injures you, pay them back twice as hard. If someone hits you, hit them back twice as hard. Let no insult be unpaid. Let no offence go unpunished. Let the law be not an eye for an eye, but a life for an eye, and a hand for a loaf of bread."

 

[Celebrim]

1) The LE person is E;
2) Hence, the LE person cares for nothing but his/her own self-interest;
3) Hence, the LE person acknowledges no other constraints on his/her action;
4) Hence, the LE person doesn't acknowledge the law as any sort of external constraint;
5) Hence, the LE person is NE;
6) Hence, LE is oxymoronic.

- numbers added for clarity

You go wrong at #2, and by failing to state 1.5 "The LE person is lawful", which would contradict #2.

Statement #2 is statement that the person is chaotic, and from there it follows that the person you've described is CE.

The correct order would look something like:

1) The LE person is E and L.
2) Hence, being lawful, the person believes that he has a duty to a higher power whose judgment and wisdom is greater than his own.
3) And also, the being evil person believes that ruthlessness cruelty and destructive acts are right and correct.
4) Hence, in the context of law, he believes the health of the community is best preserved by ruthlessness and cruelty, even toward other members of the community. Only in this manner can the community be kept fit and free from influences that might weaken it. Only in this manner can the community as a whole be made strong enough to assimilate all others.
5) Hence, the goal of the community is not the immediate weal and happiness of any member of the community, nor the health of its individual members. If members of the community have to eternally suffer to ensure the health of the community of the whole, or even if the majority of members of the community have to eternally suffer to ensure the strength of the community, then this is an acceptable outcome provided that the community survives and triumphs over all others. The goal of the community is like that of 1984's EngSoc, "a boot stamping on the face for all eternity".
6) No contradiction between these beliefs is obvious, and also we can observe that real people hold these beliefs. For example, we can find examples of people who are willing to sacrifice themselves in an evil cause, with no real hope of direct personal gain, merely because they believe in the worth of the cause. Thus, regardless of whether we personally judge this viewpoint as wise or correct, the term LE is descriptive.

In the past, you've advanced the idea that the term "good" is proscriptive. In the alignment system, it is not. Likewise, you've tended to equate "good" with "serving others interests" and "evil" with "serving your own interest". That description is a rather late development in describing alignment by later writers for TSR/WotC, and is I think in error. If you drop those assumptions, the alignment system is much more coherent.

On that approach, the LE person is not committed to law. Rather, s/he has a belief that order will let him/her impose his/her yoke upon the world. The "L" part of the LE alignment isn't a value to which the LE person is committed. It is a marker that the person believes that social order will secure the person's self-interest (just as, for the LG person, it is a marker that the person believes that social order will secure G).

Only if you define self-interest in very abstract terms. For example, you might argue that a person who sacrificed their own life with no hope of a happy afterlife or any other sort of gain, but merely to advance the goals of society did so because ensuring the continuation of his heirs or cousin or community extended his own self-interest even if he was not to be any longer a part of that society, but I'd find that a very strained explanation for his actions.

I don't actually believe LE persons are actually motivated by self-interest and are merely pretending to advance the notion of order because they believe it is of benefit for them to do so directly. For one thing, that implies that all LE persons are mere hypocrites. For another, that would imply Belkar Bitterleaf has converted to LE, despite the fact that he still acknowledges nothing but his own self-interest and no constraint upon it. I think it's not unreasonable to imagine an evil society with members that are willing to sacrifice all their own interests and even their very being to advance the society as a whole. Your conception seems to argue that its not possible to act except in one's own self-interest. Is it impossible imagine a self-sacrificing evil? The truly LE ruler would I think sacrifice himself for what he saw as the good of his society, provided of course he was convinced that their was a sufficiently strong and ruthless heir by which and under which the society could continue.

Earlier you correctly asserted that LG sees its ideal society as one in which the lower ranks of the hierarchy are content, happy, healthy and uphold the society through their wellbeing and rightful gratitude for the state of affairs. Is it impossible to imagine a society that sees the ideal state as one in which the lower ranks of the hierarchy are oppressed, exploited, and shackled and who obey ought of fear, and uphold the society because they don't have a choice. Is it impossible to imagine a society that sees the exploitation of the masses - to force them to give more than they'd ever choose to give themselves to give them no choice in the matter - as the path to the strongest possible society?

 

[Celebrim]

But if Lawful Evil types believe in the betterment of society, that does literally just make them less "evil" than the psychopathic serial killer: they value a good end, though less fully.

But Neutral Good types would validate this assessment. NG would imagine alignment as a circle (or even a diamond) with the highest place occupied by perfect Goodness not adulterated by law or chaos, and with perfect Evil not adulterated by law or chaos at the bottom. That lowest place is by definition the "most evil" and purest evil. To adulterate pure evil with law or chaos inherently makes it slightly less evil, moving evil toward the service of good goals - the health of the group, the health of the individual. To NG, the LE or CE person desires something good - indeed desires something that the NG person would affirm - but has chosen disastrously bad and ultimately self-defeating means toward that end. To the CE person, the NG person would say, "Of course you should desire your own health and happiness. But by deciding to deprive everyone around you of happiness and well-being in order to ensure your own, you are ultimately depriving yourself of the health and happiness you should have." To the LE person, the NG person would say, "Of course you should desire the health and wellbeing of the group. But by deciding that the health and wellbeing of the group was best served by destroying the health and wellbeing of most of its members, you are defeating your own good purpose." But in both cases, the NG person evaluates the person as less broken than a person who desires evil for its own sake alone.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Wouldn't a lawful neutral character be someone who respects order or the law, regardless whether those rules are good or evil? I think a lawful neutral character is basically someone who doesn't take a side, but follows either the law, or some code. A lone traveling samurai could be lawful neutral. He does not care whom he fights for, but when hired, he does the job and questions not the morality of it all.

A LN character might also be pretty conservative, with a focus on stability.
He does not care if the ruler is a king loved by his people or a murderous dictator, as long as everybody in society knows what is expected of them and nobody rocks the boat.
The kind of person who would prefer to each day be pretty simular to the day before.

 

[Celebrim]

A LN character might also be pretty conservative, with a focus on stability.
He does not care if the ruler is a king loved by his people or a murderous dictator, as long as everybody in society knows what is expected of them and nobody rocks the boat.
The kind of person who would prefer to each day be pretty simular to the day before.

I want to caution against thinking about any alignment in these terms because it trivializes alignment and tends to create overly simple stereotypes.

While it might be true (maybe) that LN is most attractive as a philosophy to punctual, neat, orderly, conservative people who dislike change, it certainly won't be true that all LN's have those attributes. It equally might be said that the philosophy is attractive to people who lack all of those traits, precisely because it offers a solution to the daily chaos of their lives. Likewise, the person might not prefer every day to be much like the day before, not because of their personality, but because they've lived long enough to remember what "interesting times" are like and intellectually and are convinced intellectually and by personal experience that another day like the day before is preferable to the alternatives. And of course, it's possible to be a radical LN zealot, precisely because you don't believe that the current society is living up the ideal set by some higher law that the society either needs to commit to, or has fallen away from. Such people are likely to exhibit fiery, dynamic, passionate traits that contrast to our normal perception of quite orderliness. Quiet orderliness may be the desired goal, but even law may suggest now is not the time or the season for quiet acceptance of the current arrangements. LN societies can move from peaceful tranquility to a roused state of aggression with startling swiftness and efficiency.

It's very important as a DM to be able to play people of different alignments against their stereotype. And in particular, it's important if you want a world that resembles the real one in some regards to remember that alignment isn't always set by role. You should have chaotic bureaucrats. You should have lawful thieves. You can and perhaps should have highly organized, punctual neat freaks that are chaotic.

In short, alignment isn't personality. Alignment is deeply held beliefs that determine how we behave - or how we think we ought to behave - in a crisis. Alignment might change how we express our personality, but personality doesn't determine alignment.

 

[seebs]

Whether or not values conflict is a matter of philosophical disagreement.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that values can conflict. That doesn't mean that they're not all good.

Here's a standard example: I can stay home and cook dinner for my family (thereby realising certain aesthetic, creative and interpersonal/relational values); or I can go to a seminar and dinner afterwards, not getting home until my kids are in bed asleep (thereby realising certain intellectual and scholarly values). It might not be obvious which choice is better; and it may even be that neither is better or worse than the other, and that the choices are therefore incommensurable.

In this sort of case, choosing either is still choosing a valuable thing. Perhaps one choice is better, but either choice is good.

The problem with treating law as a value in and of itself is that the domain of the valuable has been divorced from the domain of the good. That makes no sense to me from either the linguistic or the logical point of view. That's why I think Gygax's framework makes sense, but the 3E one doesn't: he recognises that for the LG, law is of only instrumental value, and that those who make the moral error of treating it as a value in and of itself are not good (hence LN), though not fully evil because still acknowledging an external constraint upon their behaviour (they are not simply committed to imposing their yoke upon the world).

Ohhh! I think I see the issue. There's two different terms here. One is "good" in the sense of "good and evil", and one is "good" in the sense of "aligned with this character's moral values". The premise is that "good and evil" are things that people do not necessarily agree with or value, so a character who is "lawful neutral" will hold as moral ideals things which are not objectively-good, but which are the things that person values.

We tend to use the shorthand of equating "values of my moral system" and "good within my moral system", but the D&D alignment system presupposes an objective and external set of good/evil values which are used to categorize entities, so not all entities value "good".